Understanding the Patterns and Drivers of Air Pollution on Multiple Time Scales: The Case of Northern China

China’s rapid economic growth during the past three decades has resulted in a number of environmental problems, including the deterioration of air quality. It is necessary to better understand how the spatial pattern of air pollutants varies with time scales and what drive these changes. To address these questions, this study focused on one of the most heavily air-polluted areas in North China. We first quantified the spatial pattern of air pollution, and then systematically examined the relationships of air pollution to several socioeconomic and climatic factors using the constraint line method, correlation analysis, and stepwise regression on decadal, annual, and seasonal scales. Our results indicate that PM_2.5 was the dominant air pollutant in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region, while PM_2.5 and PM₁₀ were both important pollutants in the Agro-pastoral Transitional Zone (APTZ) region. Our statistical analyses suggest that energy consumption and gross domestic product (GDP) in the industry were the most important factors for air pollution on the decadal scale, but the impacts of climatic factors could also be significant. On the annual and seasonal scales, high wind speed, low relative humidity, and long sunshine duration constrained PM_2.5 accumulation; low wind speed and high relative humidity constrained PM₁₀ accumulation; and short sunshine duration and high wind speed constrained O₃ accumulation. Our study showed that analyses on multiple temporal scales are not only necessary to determine key drivers of air pollution, but also insightful for understanding the spatial patterns of air pollution, which was important for urban planning and air pollution control.